One of the largest transactions in social casino history took place last year, when one of China’s leading online games companies made a $4.4 billion acquisition of Israel-based social casino company Playtika. 

The deal served as a wake up call as to the industry’s potential and operators around the world turned their eyes to growing opportunities in Asia.

“Historically, there was a lot of skepticism about the free-to-play model as applied to the games of chance,” John Lin, managing director of Playstudios and a speaker at the ASEAN Gaming Summit 2017, said in an earlier interview with AGB.

“Following the Playtika acquisition, people are starting to recognize that [social casino] is a very lucrative field, growing much faster than the land-based market,” he said.

There is no doubt, that Asian players love games of chance,” he continued. “Our conviction is that the social casino sector [in Asia] will one day be larger than North America and Europe.”

While Asia’s social casino market is not an easy one to tap into, due to scattered players and fierce international competition, “there's an opportunity to be part of the evolution as players mature, distribution channels mature and the game genres themselves continue to evolve,” says Mr. Lin.

At the ASEAN Gaming Summit 2017, to be held at the Conrad Manila on 21-23 March, 2017, Mr. Lin will be “putting a value on social casino in Asia”, by speaking about social casino revenue models that are seeing success in Asia, and how this all fits within the land-based and online gambling industry.